A slow cooked lamb curry? Oh my yes! When I first heard about a nihari I had to try it. This is a mix of a few recipes I found and is done with a whole leg of lamb. It yields a tender pile of meat and a rich gravy-like sauce that isn’t overly spicy.

Step 1 - Spice mix

• Grind the mace, nutmeg, fennel seeds, curry leaves, cinnamon, peppercorns, cumin seeds and cloves into a fine powder. Ideally using a spice grinder but a pestle and mortar will also work.

• To this powder add ground ginger, smoked paprika and chilli powder.
  Top tip: no need to roast spices first

Step 2 - Slow cook

• Preheat the oven to 160 C.

• Brown the leg of lamb all over in the vegetable oil in a frying pan, then transfer to a casserole dish.

• In the same frying pan (don’t bother to clean it), add the ghee and fry the onions over a low heat until soft and translucent.

• All the ground spice mix to the frying onions and the fresh ginger and chillies then quickly stir in.

• Add this mixture to the casserole pot and pour over a litre of water.

• Put the lid on the casserole and put in the oven for 3 hours. Occasionally turn the leg and baste.

• After this time the meat should be close to falling off the bone. Remove the leg and, if desired, thicken the sauce with a little cornflour/water paste.

• Serve with chopped fresh coriander, sliced chillies and a wedge of lemon, and your favourite curry side dishes.

 Ingredients

• 1 tbsp mace

• 1/2 whole nutmeg

• 2 tbsp fennel seeds

• 3 curry leaves

• 1/4 cinnamon stick

• 1 tsp black peppercorns

• 1 tsp cloves

• 2 tsp cumin seeds

• 1 tsp ground ginger

• 1 tsp smoked paprika

• 1 tsp chilli powder

• 1/2 leg of lamb

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil

• 2 tbsp ghee

• 1 large onion, sliced

• 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and chopped

• 3 or 4 whole fresh chillies

• Fresh coriander, lemon and chillies to finish